Get the Civ 3 code

[ZergMazter]

People we have to get together and make a petition. Why dont we do something like a tweeter account and fill it with followers with the petition to get the civ 3 code for modders?

Civ 3 is an amazing game that could be something more than civ 4 and 5. Heck i'd be willing to pay to have access to the code so that we can finish a game they never finished.

I'd be happy if the AI could at least be taken off dumbo mode. They are only good cuz they cheat.

Things on my wish list that i'd like to see a reality:

1- Smart AI (Including better use of bombardment units)
2- Tradeable units
3- Religion
4- Dynamic use of resources (Think of Stronghold the game)
5- Civil wars like on civ 2
6- Resistance with partisans like on civ 2
7- Colonies (Not the crappy resource colony)
8- Fortresses functioning like on civ 4
9- Expanded diplomacy:
A-Trade embargoes like on civ 4 and also stops gold/turn trade.
B-United nations like on civ 4 and not just to win.
C-Able to broker peace treaties between nations like on civ 4

10- What i mean by Dynamic use of resources:

On civ 3 Gold isnt used for much but to rush, upgrade, or buy a tech. This results in massive amounts of unused gold late in the game since there are no sanctions to hurt it, or anything worth using it for besides rushing a project. What if we made resources more dynamic like for example oil. Every unit that requires oil will need to consume a barrel of oil per turn. An oil mining site connected by a road will produce 10 oil barrels per turn. The more mining sites you control the more barrels u get, the more military machines you can build, or the more you can sell to other nation's reserves so that they can afford their machines. A trade embargo would devastate nations who do not control the resource themselves after they run out of oil barrels.

This is just an example but you follow me? Its more dynamic and gold will be constantly moving to buy whatever resource you need or selling surplus. Its a trader's dream. It could be done for every resource and make it more valuable to control multiple sites of the same resource.

Lets make a petition and see what happens. Even if they sell the code im in. That doesnt mean we wont buy later products. It means they better start making better games and stop trying to sell us 'ok' products just cuz they want money.

 

[general-jcl]

"Civ 3 is an amazing game that could be something more than civ 4 and 5" yes that's why they won't give the code, i think

 

[Civinator]

ZergMazter, this all was tried long ago by Steph without any success.

 

[ZergMazter]

if i was only Bill Gate's son i would start a hostile takeover of their business to get me the code

 

[COAtlantis1745]

I would be perfectly happy with having the option to add as many eras as I wished. I can live with the rest of the limitations we are keenly aware with Civ3.

 

[Lanzelot]

Perhaps we should ask the NSA?

 

[Lanzelot]

BTW: how successful do you guys think an attempt at changing the thing with assembler would be? I've done lots of Assembler development on the Commodore 64 back in the early 80s, but I understand that Assembler for today's Intel CPUs is quite a bit more complex... Anyway, perhaps we could at least get the most blatant bugs fixed, like the re-emerged submarine-bug or the non-functional "Scientific Golden Age"...

 

[Redback]

ZergMazter, this all was tried long ago by Steph without any success.

That was years ago.... so maybe we have a chance.

 

[Blue Monkey]

People we have to get together and make a petition. Why dont we do something like a tweeter account and fill it with followers with the petition to get the civ 3 code for modders?

Civ 3 is an amazing game that could be something more than civ 4 and 5. Heck i'd be willing to pay to have access to the code so that we can finish a game they never finished.

"Civ 3 is an amazing game that could be something more than civ 4 and 5" yes that's why they won't give the code, i think

if i was only Bill Gate's son i would start a hostile takeover of their business to get me the code

I would be perfectly happy with having the option to add as many eras as I wished. I can live with the rest of the limitations we are keenly aware with Civ3.

Perhaps we should ask the NSA?

... Anyway, perhaps we could at least get the most blatant bugs fixed, like the re-emerged submarine-bug or the non-functional "Scientific Golden Age"...

That was years ago.... so maybe we have a chance.

All this passion and energy would be better spent doing things such as helping Quintillus test his editor.

 

[COAtlantis1745]

^ One dead horse, surrounded by a mob of angry pitchfork-armed peasants might have sufficed here.

 

[Ozymandias]

What Blue Monkey said.

And it wasn't just Steph who tried: I had a college connection on the company's Board Of Directors. I even tried to talk $s. No go. I can - as can many others - speculate as to why; my top has come to be that some group (say, oh, us) would create a better and more competitive product to post-Civ3 games - and maybe even make it freeware.

So It Goes,

z

 

[WildWeazel]

Have to agree with Blue Monkey here, this has been tried and retried over the years to no avail. The last valiant attempt got us a pretty final "no" from the suits. The solution is free home-brewed code, but to be perfectly honest we've made just as many attempts to build our own game and in the end those have been just as productive as the code petitions.

 

[ZergMazter]

Then we only have 1 option left. Boycot future civilization games till we get the civ 3 code

 

[ZergMazter]

I dont know much about this, but cant a game be hacked the same way a hacker changes software even tho initially they dont know anything about its code? Man If i could do that kind of thing even if it was illegal i would do it. After all it wont be leaving my PC, and its for my own personal entertainment, and there is no way anyone would know about it. Unfortunately i dont know jack about coding

 

[Blue Monkey]

I dont know much about this, but cant a game be hacked the same way a hacker changes software even tho initially they dont know anything about its code?

Sure it can ...

To expand a little on Quintillus' excellent & thorough explanation for the uninitiated. Forgive me, programmers, if I oversimplify a bit. Just trying to give people the 5 cent tour.

The questions Balthasar raised and comments by everyone in the last few posts are precisely why so much effort has been made to get access to the source code. Source code is human-readable language such as the image Quintillus linked to. An .exe such as the biq is compiled from the source code into a lower level language. The actual program run by the computer is a binary code but human beings can access that via a hexadecimal editor such as the one enbryodead linked to in his thread. Assembly language looks like this image from embryodead's thread. People like Quintillus & Steph are looking at that, trying to translate it into something as understandable as Quintillus' example, then create an editor that lets the rest of us manipulate the assembly / hexadecimal code by clicking on some buttons and typing a couple of words.* It's as if they are reverse engineering a 747 so that the rest of us can buy a first class ticket. IMHO what they are doing is such a herculean task that it's amazing anyone even attempts it.**

The people who mod newer versions of civ don't face the same issues because they have been given tools like SDKs (software developers kits) that let them read the programming language that was used and edit or add new code. That's the equivalent of the C3 source code being downloadable almost as soon as the game itself was released. What they're writing may be incomprehensible to most of us. But it's a lot more like editing the civilopedia text file than doing hexadecimal math to figure out how to properly change some assembly language.* **


--------------

*To get some idea how difficult that is try adding AF0357DB to 00C918EE .

** Andy Hertzfeld is legendary among programmers. To quote wikipedia: "Hertzfeld's business card at Apple listed his title as Software Wizard. He wrote large portions of the Macintosh's original system software including much of the burned-in ROM code, the User Interface Toolbox, and a number of innovative components now standard in many graphic user interfaces ..." Andy Hertzfeld could do hexadecimal math in his head. He could do that with properly functioning assembly code. He could verbally offer suggestions for changes and additions in assembly code while he was working on something else. That means he could write and edit functioning programs from memory - he knew where in the long strings of hexadecimal numbers the commands were that needed changes. He could also change other others' code if he could get them to read it to him without any errors or omissions.

Every once in a while Quintillus feels up to probing around in someone else's 10 year old code - without access to the programmer or anything humanly readable - and try to figure out what's usable, what's incomplete but fixable and what's deadwood. Then not just make it editable via a nice gui, but editable across platforms with biqs from versions of the game whose assembly language differs from each other. While doing his day job & having a life. He's good at it and so is Steph. Wish we could pay them 6 or 7 figures a piece to do it. & give them some place as nice as Apple's campus to work at. All we can do is give them time & play-test the heck out their creations so they know what works and what doesn't. Know all that is preaching to the choir - but at least now it's been said publicly.

 

[Ozymandias]

Honestly, I'm not certain it's worth the effort, except perhaps if a lovely, miscellaneous and hidden flag like Civ2's "Double Defense Against Cavalry" can be found.

I write this with the presumption that the desired end is to ultimately be able to modify the "AI."

Sadly, having given the matter much thought (and some extensive experimentation) I have come to believe that there is no Civ3 "AI," even in the most rudimentary definitions of the term.

Certainly, there are certain simple arithmetic equations in play, but consider these two very diverse points:

(1) Long-ago-and-far-away, there was a burst of research into which unit the AI would build next. It certainly seemed as though everyone involved entered into this investigation with the assumption that the AI performed some sort of cost-benefit analysis.

Many fine minds couldn't find one, although certain preferences were obvious.

Now, consider the standard, out-of-the-box game and scenarios.

Just using the simplest case, at any point during the game, there is always one best-possible defensive unit as well as one best-possible attacker.

Cutting to the quick using this example, there is no significant AI "choice" because the software was built to fit the vanilla game only.

(2) Utterly different point: How many times have you seen the "AI" build the Forbidden Palace in the same city as the Palace? I ask again: What AI?

Conclusion: there is no code for us to fiddle with because the very design approach is mind-bogglingly simplistic.

Also, we'll never get the code (Hell, I tried to buy it) because I suspect that it's fairly obvious that - with an obviously difficult to coordinate effort - we could, collectively, build a game that would be a direct threat to the Civ franchise - And (shudder, horrors!) probably release it as freeware.

Just my 2 cents (or, if you prefer, the $100,000 I was willing to offer for the code.)


So It Goes,

z

 

[WildWeazel]

Oz, whenever you bring up AI I always wonder if we could coax anything definitive out of Soren Johnson - or if he would even be able to talk now that he's left Firaxis.

 

[Ozymandias]

Oz, whenever you bring up AI I always wonder if we could coax anything definitive out of Soren Johnson - or if he would even be able to talk now that he's left Firaxis.

My angle was through a classmate who was on the company's board; Steph's through a senior project manager.

If anyone has any sort of line on Soren whatsoever - heck, go for it.

BTW, he apparently MERITS HIS OWN WIKIPEDIA PAGE.

Of note: "In 2013 he co-founded Mohawk Games." ( http://www.mohawkgames.com/ ) I can't imagine that he's not under some form of non-compete / non-disclosure clause.

Perhaps ironically, the site proclaims: "Johnson espouses Mohawk’s core philosophies in the inaugural post on the studio’s blog, including ongoing community involvement, early access programs, and extensive mod support."

- Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of ...


-z

 

[Blue Monkey]

early access programs, and extensive mod support."

- Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of ...


-z

This is what "extensive mod support" will probably look like in the next gen ...

 

[Gray Wolf]

You know...even if we got the code ... who has the time to work on it? I'm a retired .net programmer ... and when I worked ... I had a few projects where we inherited some old code and a client wanted it enhanced with better features. It would take several programmers months working full time every day to finish all the changes.

Also, we don't know what language civ3 was programmed in? I'd be willing to work on it if it was .net but something tells me it isn't.

What I was going to say... one time the client wanted so many enhancements and features that we decided to just re-write the whole application from scratch. It's easier to re-write an application than to spend weeks trying to decipher and reverse engineer someone else's code.

So my point is that some of us .net programmers could probably re-write this game from scratch easier than enhance the existing code which we all know has tons of bugs in it.

I do wish it was all open source though so we could at least answer some questions about how the AI is programmed to act in certain situations, etc.